Chastity did not like being out. It was a key defining factor of her personhood. Yet, for a week straight, she had been out, gallivanting and mildly sinning, doing just about anything to avoid being in Ivy's flat.

This, in her humble opinion, had not been her fault.

On day one of temporarily living together, she had assumed everything had been completely fine. She had moved about the flat like she usually did, doing the sensible thing and never even thinking about that one night, yet she seemed to have done something wrong. This, she deduced, was the reason why on day two, despite working from home, Ivy had mysteriously disappeared when she got off work. Initially, she had choked it to a very convinient coincidence, but she knew Ivy much too well. Ivy never liked leaving the flat on the weekdays. She was the kind of person who paid another to do her weekly shopping should it end in the middle. She would join discord groups to starve off restlessness should anything go slow. Hell, she'd start discorse on Reddit for the sake of shaking things up before she left the house on a weekday, yet she did. She left and came back wildly late in the night, and Chastity had to pretend not to be the wiser.

Not that she had to, anyway. Her best friend had kept up with her frolicking, and so Chastity decided to start hers. She had promised herself to make known friends, and what better time than that? The problem was that the idea of gallivanting for Chastity was going to the local bar, finding the most hidden corner and nursing a cider until the clock struck ten. She nary made a move to talk to anyone and so she never made any friends.

"This is stupid," she said to herself. 

It was Friday evening, and the local bar was packed to the brim. There was, apparently, a football league of this and that persuasion, and as such, it brought the whole population of round bellied men to the bar to scream magical expletives at the screen. It was only eight pm, and she did not know where else to go. 

Cutting off someone who had spotted her and thus thought it a brilliant idea to romance her, Chastity decided enough was enough, and she needed to get a handle on herself. They had gone on for far too long behaving as they were, and it was clear that one of them had to handle the situation before it got worse. She needed to be the one, obviously. She was the older of the two with having experienced the nonsense and the disappointment that was the general state of living. She had the moral obligation to lead both of them to the light.

Making her resolve, none of it having to do with the two shots of straight vodka and extra boost of confidence given by the overpriced bottle of gin she bought, she walked briskly, with almost zero zigzaging, to home. She had been sure Kiptum had said something, but she had been too determined to hear any of it. She would hear it in the morning. At that moment, all her brain power was focused on Ivy, and she could not afford any distractions.

The door to B3 had become a daunting thing which was hillarious because the shagging had happened in the snake infested flat, not the forested one. Still, everyday, it seemed, the door would get slightly larger than before and as such, more menacing. It was as though it was trying to assert some kind of dominance over Chastity and she was not going to have any of it. At least, not that night. 

Gin bottle at hand, she took in a deep breath, rested her hand on the door handle and swang it with as much pazzas as one who was guilty but was definetly trying to hide the fact entirely. "HELLO!" she sang and shouted, beautifully off key it was magic all on its own, as she shut the door behind her and focused on the sofa.

There sat the current hoarder of all her uncomfortable feelings. Her back was hunched and she hands were clasped together over her knees. Her eyes looked dark - they were in fact, dark as a shadow was cast over them. From the direction of her face, she deduced that she was looking at her. Not just looking but looking seriously at her. 

"Where have you been?"

The first time Chastity had met Ivy, she had been drunk and giggly. This had set the precedence of their relationship. She was the constantly giggly friend who was occasionally drunk and held the cute spot in their duo. Heavens Ivy was cute. It had something to do with that stray beauty spot right next to her right eye. It also had to do with the prominent two front teeth that led her to looking curiously like a rabbit. If her nose twitched, she was sure she could canonically be the first human rabbit to walk on earth. 

With all that, Chastity was almost stunned to silence because she had never seen her look close to almost menacing. She rolled her eyes - mostly in retaliation than anything. "What? Are you going to spank me for coming home late? The home you have been avoiding until much later than this?"

The shadow disappeared and her eyes widened, letting the artificial light settle on them in a twinkle. Chastity thought it was very unfair because her resolve might buckle sooner than she'd anticipated. 

"I didn't - I am sorry. I shouldn't have done that." Ivy sat upright, resting her back on the sofa, hands unclasping and arms spreading on the damn thing. Was she doing it on purpose? Chastity wondered. Then she had to wonder without any sort of eye contact because her mind, addled with vodka, was starting to have a naughty turn about. 

"Yeah, you shouldn't have. Now I feel like I have outstayed my welcome which is something I never thought I would feel with you." Chastity wondered to the kitchen, emerging with two empty glasses. She made herself comfortable on the carpet as she opened the bottle and filled the two glasses. "We need to establish ourselves after that situation. We can't keep on avoiding each other like this." She pushed one of the glasses towards Ivy. "Was the sex that terrible?"

That had not been what she'd wanted to ask. Actually, that had not even occured to her might have been the problem. Far as she knew, she'd had a fantastic time and the idea that Ivy might had not lucked on that, because of her, it sent boulders much too heavy for her chest. She did not want to know in the same viciousness that she wanted to know. If it was bad, so be it! She could relearn how to have sex with women. But then if it were that bad, she'd embarrassed herself in front of her bff and there was no going back.

"No. The sex was not terrible," Ivy answered, in a tone that was much to cavallier about the whole thing. Chastity was not sure what to make of it. "I mean, I remember coming a couple of times so it had to be good." As though wanting to shut herself up, Ivy reached quickly for her glass and downed its content, closing her eyes longer than she needed. "Was it," she went on, "bad for you?"

"NO!" She was shouting. She needed to stop shouting. "God no. It wasn't. It was, you know, I came too. A couple of times."

They fell into silence. She filled the glasses once more and in quick succession, they both downed them. The discussion, she thought, was not supposed to go that way. The way where suddenly everything felt super charged and she felt her stomach get heavier as her legs got sloppier. She felt herself getting wetter by the minute as she stared at Ivy and half of her wanted to admonish such cowardly displays of unabushed lust. 

Ivy's eyes settled once more her way and she was left without breath. If she understood her best friend - and she liked to boast that she did more than anyone else in the world - that look mirrored exactly what she was feeling all over. She swallowed. 

"One more time?" she asked, already on her knees.

"One more time," Ivy answered and the table, together with the space between them, disappeared.